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I knew it was bad before she even opened the door. I heard the sigh—the particular sigh of a woman who has just watched a man eat soup with a dessert spoon. She walked in, kicked off her heels, and went straight to the freezer for the emergency pint of pistachio ice cream.

We both burst out laughing. And in that moment, I realized: a bad date isn’t a failure. It’s just material. My mother put the wilted carnation in a juice glass on the windowsill, where it looked, somehow, not sad but defiant. mother's bad date

“Next time,” she said, finishing the last of the pistachio, “I’m bringing you. You can make faces at him from across the table.” I knew it was bad before she even opened the door

“That bad?” I asked.

“Comma the cat.”

“With snacks or weapons?”

We sat in silence for a moment. The clock ticked. We both burst out laughing